Hindu tem­ple wel­comes men­stru­at­ing women

In­dia made it onto the right side of women’s his­tory this year when its Supreme Court over­turned a fa­mous Hindu tem­ple’s ban on the ad­mis­sion of men­stru­at­ing women. The shrine – open for only 127 days a year – is lo­cated on a moun­tain and is vis­ited by 50 mil­lion pil­grims a year, yet has shut its doors to men­stru­at­ing in­di­vid­u­als for decades. This is a re­sult of the pa­tri­ar­chal stigma at­tached to men­stru­a­tion in In­dia, where women are pro­hib­ited from com­mu­nal cook­ing and eat­ing places, as well as the tem­ples, on days when they are hav­ing their pe­riod. Jus­tice Di­pak Misra lifted this ban on the pro­found grounds that ‘Pa­tri­archy in re­li­gion can­not be per­mit­ted to trump pure de­vo­tion born out of faith and the free­dom to prac­tise one’s re­li­gion.’